About Us
Recognising the Armed Forces community
The Soldiering On Awards recognise outstanding achievements of those who have served our country, the diverse people and groups who work together in support of the Armed Forces community. We aim to encourage support for this remarkable community by celebrating the achievements of the people, teams, and businesses within it.
Leadership Team
The Rt Hon. the Earl Howe GBE PC
Deputy Leader of the House of Lords Patron, Soldiering On Awards
Earl Howe is Deputy Leader of the House of Lords and former Minister of State for Defence. He took up this position in May 2015, moving from the Department of Health where he had been Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Quality since May 2010. In his former role as Minister of State for Defence (May 2015 to July 2019) he had ministerial responsibilities covering NATO and EU relations, commemorations, ceremonial, medallic recognition, arms control and proliferation, community engagement, and being spokesman in the House of Lords on all defence matters.
Educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, Lord Howe joined Barclays Bank in 1973, where he served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts both overseas and in London before being appointed London director of Adam & Co plc in 1987.
In 1991, Lord Howe became a government whip in the House of Lords. He served as Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1992-1995 and as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence from 1995-1997. In opposition he served as Spokesperson for Health from 1997 to 2010.
Lord Howe is an elected hereditary peer under the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999. Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, Earl Howe has previously been a member of the all-party groups on penal affairs, abuse investigations, pharmaceuticals, adoption, mental health and epilepsy.
Earl Howe is married with four children.
Lieutenant General (Ret'd) Richard Nugee CB CVO CBE
Co-Chair of Judges, Soldiering On Awards
Lieutenant General Richard Nugee was commissioned into the Army in 1986. He served on numerous operational tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan while at the same time focussing on personnel (HR) roles within the Army and Ministry of Defence. This included instructing at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, being responsible for the organisational design of the Army post the 2010 Defence Review; and latterly spending the last 4 years as Chief of Defence People (i.e. Defence Global HR Director) responsible for central policy for all Service personnel, their families, all Defence Civil Servants and the nation’s veterans. In January 2020 he took on a review of Defence’s approach to delivering carbon net zero by 2050 and is the Defence representative across Government for COP26.
Appointed MBE in 1998, CBE in 2012, CVO in 2016 and CB in 2020 he was awarded the US Legion of Merit for his services in Afghanistan in 2014. He has numerous interests both within Defence and outside, including as a Non-executive director of the NAAFI. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, has an MA in Military Affairs and is a Graduate of the City and Guilds Institute. He is Chair and Trustee of a number of charitable trusts.
Debra Allcock-Tyler
CEO of The Directory of Social ChangeCo-Chair of Judges, Soldiering On Awards
Debra is Soldiering On Awards Co-chair of Judges a position she shares with Lord Dannatt. She has been the Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change (DSC) since 2001. DSC exists to support charities to serve their communities and their causes and reaches around 15,000 charities a year through its work. She is a Trustee of In-Kind Direct, a Trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation, an AAF (Africa Advocacy Foundation) Ambassador for Women and Girls at risk of, or affected by, FGM and other harmful practices and, until very recently, was the Vice Chair of Governors of White Knights Primary School. She was the founder Chair of the Small Charities Coalition. She was a member of the Charity Commission’s SORP Committee for 7 years.
Debra is particularly proud of her 15 years as a voluntary Trade Union Officer and the year she spent working with Youth at Risk. She is a mentor to a number of CEOs and Chairs of Trustee Boards. Debra is a renowned authority in the field of leadership and governance in civil society, and an internationally published author.
Lt. Col. Ren Kapur MBE
Chief Executive Officer
X-Forces Enterprise and Soldiering on Awards
Ren founded X-Forces Enterprise (XFE) in 2013. XFE is the UK’s leading provider of business support and enterprise skills training to the military community, supporting over 2000 members of the military community into business. Soldiering On Awards became a brand of XFE in 2018.
XFE holds Gold Status under the MoD’s Employer Recognition Scheme and Ren is on the Gold Award Association Steering Group. She is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group, Women in Enterprise.
In 2009 Ren was appointed National Champion for Business Administration and Finance by the Education Secretary, and she was awarded MBE for services to Entrepreneurship in the Queen’s 90th Birthday Honours List 2016.
Martin Wing
Co-Chief Executive Officer
X-Forces Enterprise and Soldiering on Awards
Martin has extensive industry experiences gained over 35 years as an engineer and business consultant. He has led businesses and project teams to achieve their ambitions and has been a business owner for almost 20 years. An engineer by background, Martin began his commercial career with BAE Systems before progressing to support global brands, international government departments, and philanthropic organisations.
He has spent 22 years as a consultant, mostly for US-based management consultancy firm Kepner- Tregoe in Princeton, leading their European operation for five years until 2013. More recently he has built out the European operational capacity of Brazilian firm Integration, where he doubled the size of the operation and led a project recognised by the Management Consultants Association as Project of the Year 2017 for work with the UK Department for International Trade.
Martin has now moved from a Non-Executive Chairman role to Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of X-Forces Enterprise, Soldiering On Awards and X-Emergency Services.
He leads on organisational scale-up, strategy implementation, governance, and operational delivery for the organisations from their London-based headquarter.
WO1 Rupert Frere
British Army, Command Master Photographer. Company Director, Schmooly.
Rupert Frere is the British Army Headquarters Master Photographer and company director of Schmooly media company. Rupert has won ,various awards for his photography and was the runner up in television show Master of Photography which was aired world wide on Sky.
Rupert has deployed to various war zones as a front line photographer, taught photography to British Army Intelligence, worked as the Royal photographer in London and is currently working in Army Communications. Outside of the army Rupert runs photography workshops and is employed by various companies as their official photographer including Soldiering on Awards, The Royal Variety and The Invictus Games, amongst others.
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X-Forces (XFE) CIC
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